


A Parisian Reunion

by celluloidbroomcloset



Category: The Avengers (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-02
Updated: 2015-04-02
Packaged: 2018-03-20 20:19:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3663630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celluloidbroomcloset/pseuds/celluloidbroomcloset
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Following their reunion post-The New Avengers, Steed and Mrs. Peel take a much needed trip to Paris together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Parisian Reunion

Emma traced the swirling ornamentation of the suite’s ceiling onto Steed’s back. She’d grown very acquainted with that ceiling over the past four days. That had been her current experience of Paris: almost entirely made up of the opulent suite in a five star hotel on the Ile St. Louis. They had taken every breakfast, lunch, dinner and tea in that suite. Once they attempted to take a walk by the Seine – she’d even gone so far as to get into the shower. Then Steed joined her and the prospect evaporated beneath the flowing water. 

Steed lay with his head, shoulders and chest resting on her torso and his hands tucked beneath her waist. She stroked his hair – no longer dark but greying, and still as thick and soft as she remembered. Several times she suspected he was asleep, but then he would turn his head and press small kisses to her abdomen, his hands sliding up and down across her hips and waist in a lethargic caress.

She idly counted off the months since they’d reconnected in swirls on his back – three months and two days. If she thought very hard, she might have been able to identify the hour and even the minute when she picked up the phone and knew it was him. A bit silly, but somehow she had heard him in the way that it rang. They always seemed connected by more than just mutual attraction and regard. There was something deeper and more elemental between them, something which she had tried to ignore in the intervening years and found, finally, that she couldn’t.

Emma’s stomach rumbled. Steed rolled his head and smiled sleepily at her.

“Always hungry,” he said. 

“I think we ate breakfast several hours ago, you know.”

“What time is it?”

“I’ve no earthly idea.” 

“Can’t be very important then.” 

He kissed her abdomen, scraping his teeth lightly along the skin. Emma shivered. She had not known anything like this, not on her honeymoon, not even with Steed until now. They had always been passionate with each other, but never before had they been so comfortable. The things they’d been able to tell each other, some for the very first time. It was as though seeing each other again had opened the gates that both had kept locked for so very long.

“I am getting hungry, Steed,” she said, not caring to stop his slow ascent of her body. 

“So am I,” he rumbled. 

He was taking his time, though, savoring her body with his mouth. His big hands massaged her hips and down to her flanks even as his mouth worked upwards. 

He reached the apex of her chest, then turned his attention to her right breast, teasing light kisses until taking her nipple into his mouth and very gently sucking on it. Emma had never completely understood the male fascination with women’s breasts – beyond the obvious maternal association, which she preferred not to consider too deeply – but she was pleased by Steed’s. He could do diabolical things with his mouth and tongue. 

Her stomach rumbled again. She was hungry, and now found herself torn between the demanding mouth – and the hands that were gradually seeking to part her thighs – and other basic considerations. She heard Steed laugh between kisses.

“You’re impossible.” She wound her fingers into his hair as his tongue flicked fast over her nipple. 

“I can never please you, can I?” He raised his head and smiled at her. “And I do make such efforts.”

He moved to the left breast. Heat followed the electric tingle that shimmered down her body. She could not repress a whimper, knowing that his skill would leave her quivering and wanting more. It was not fair of him. He’d been playing very unfairly for several days. 

It was a double assault on her equilibrium, for even as he worked on the one erogenous zone, he succeeded in parting her legs. Not that she mounted any resistance. His hands worked as quickly as his mouth, exerting just the right amount of pressure in just the right place. Where she was scientific, testing and re-testing, Steed was always more emotionally attuned to her body. He did things by intuition. When it came to her, he was nearly always correct.

Giving over any idea of being fed for the moment, Emma reached up and scraped her nails deftly along his back to the base of his skull. He groaned, mouth still pressed against her, and renewed his attack with increased zeal. Two fingers slid inside of her, followed by a thumb rubbing against her clitoris. She moaned, bit her lip, tried to stifle it. She heard him chuckle again. 

“You have a sadistic streak,” she said, or tried to.

“So do you.”

He kissed her mouth and simultaneously pressed deeper, then pulled back a little to watch her reactions. She could see the amusement, the delight in his eyes, as her breathing caught, and an involuntary cry of pleasure escaped her lips. 

“I hate you,” she moaned. 

“No, you don’t. You love me.” He lowered his lips next to her ear. “And I love you, Emma.”

His fingers moved in and out, his thumb circling. 

“I love you,” he repeated.

Her hips rose and fell to his movements. 

“More than my own life,” he continued, breath warm in her ear. She began shaking. 

“I love that I can make you feel like this. I love how you make me feel.”

White heat at the base of her spine. 

“I love everything you are.”

“Steed,” she moaned, and did not care if it sounded like begging. A final, quick and deep thrust of his fingers, a final flick of his thumb, and she came, her back arching against his hand, her mouth open in a wordless cry that she was certain must have reached the neighboring room.

When she opened her eyes, he was looking down at her with a pleased – not to say smug – expression. Some things do not change.

“You are a bastard,” she said.

“And one which you cannot help but adore, wildly and unashamedly.”

He kissed her mouth. She wrapped her arms around his back and pulled him down, tongue warring with his. His own arousal was evident as he rolled over on top of her and she spread her legs to further accommodate him. She broke the kiss to search the long elegant lines of his neck, the prominent Adam’s Apple, and heard him groan as the tip of his penis came into contact with her opening.

She seized the opportunity. She wrapped her legs around his and thrust her hips up. 

Steed was either unprepared for her to take the initiative, or momentarily distracted, for he reacted with a short spasm of his body and a deep, guttural moan that intensely aroused her. He raised his head.

“Evil woman,” he said. 

“Serves you right for teasing me,” she responded. 

She tightened her grip on his legs and thrust up again, embedding him deeper. He closed his eyes for a moment, evidently attempting to retain control. 

“You’d better do something about it, Steed, or I will.” 

“Give me a minute.”

He opened his eyes. A thrill went through her as he seized her wrists and pinned her back against the bed. His grip was powerful, but playful and she knew that if she asked him to stop, he would. She didn’t want him to. They were two naturally dominant people, but it was an endless exchange, an erotic war, and one they had been fighting ever since they first met. She could never really best him in terms of strength, but she had won a battle or several in the past. 

Keeping her hands pinned, he shifted upwards, forcing her to raise her legs and wrap them around his hips, or else lose the deep contact. Then he began to move, at first with very short strokes, barely moving at all, but leaving her shaking, wanting more. Then longer in increments, sweeping deep thrusts that sent waves of heat up and down her body. Pinned down as she was, she could not rise up to kiss him or caress him. She looked up at him, at his flexed arm muscles, and the sweat forming on his chest, down his abdomen and as he thrust into her again she wanted badly to touch him, to possess his body as he was possessing hers. 

“John,” she moaned.

He never failed her. His attention to detail was astounding, for though his clever hands were occupied in holding her wrists, his mouth searched her. Free reign over her body, without slackening the pace. He kissed her neck, found the pulse point on her throat, nipped at her – only lightly, but enough to make her arch at the combination of exceptional pleasure and that tiny edge of pain – teased her, and all the while sliding in and out of her, bringing her that much closer to climax, but not quite letting her get there. Wanting to prolong the torture. That combination of energy and indolence that marked Steed’s character in every other facet of life also marked his lovemaking – slow, languid, ruthless, passionate. She’d never known a lover quite like him. 

But he was not going to have everything his own way. She felt his grip loosen, just for a moment, and seized the opportunity. In one swift move, she rolled him over so that she was on top, sitting astride his pelvis. He stared up at her, a mixture of surprise and adoration.

“Here, and here,” she said, moving his hands so that one covered a breast while the heel of the other pressed against her clitoris as she began to ride him. He obeyed, as he’d always obeyed her when she asked him to. Without sacrificing a single modicum of his own sovereignty, he willingly gave her everything.

Emma felt his muscles tense within a few seconds as she rose and fell on him. His breath came faster. Her own tension rose; she already began to feel outside her own body, yet more alive than ever. She repeated his name, breathless and almost a whisper as her hands roved over his chest. Nothing could have been calculated more to drive him wild. 

She could see the intense concentration in his face as he slammed his eyes shut, his desperation not to come until she did. She felt her orgasm rise, her hands dug into his chest, bracing herself against him.

She cried out and felt him come at the same time, his body shaking beneath hers, her muscles contracting against him, and both of them entirely removed from the real world, joined together.

Never before had she felt this way. Never before had she wanted someone as she wanted him. It was not a consumptive, demanding love, but one that seemed to make them both better, more complete. She was better when she was with him. 

She felt arms around her, and his breath coming in slowing spurts. She raised her head from where it was pressed into the curve of his neck and kissed his ear. There washed over her a familiar sense of affection. She’d never before wanted to protect someone so entirely. Strange to feel so fiercely protective of such a capable man.

“I love you,” she whispered. “So much.”

She raised her head to look into his eyes and saw the mirror of her own wonderment.

“My dear Emma, what have you done to me?”

She stroked his hair, and looked into his sadder, wiser eyes that still shone with all the passion he’d possessed as a young man. It was sometimes difficult to remember that he was a good fifteen years older than she was. He did not act it. 

“Do you want me to order lunch?” he asked. 

She did not want to move, but she was devilishly hungry and their exertions had not helped matters. She nodded, but did not forebear to kiss him a second time before rolling off him. 

Steed found the phone where it lay buried, shoved into the drawer on the bedside table to ward off any interruptions. Emma turned and looked at his back as he spoke to the downstairs desk, rattling off his order in perfect French. Halfway down his back, scars criss-crossed over each other, long and straight, where he’d been lashed at Ni San. A small puckered wound in his side represented a bullet from a German rifle, and there was another in his thigh from going over the Wall. Testaments to a dangerous life.

He set the phone down and twisted back around to her. “They’re sending it up. I suppose we’ll have to put something on.”

He looked around the suite with a bit of a frown on his face. “Now where can my trousers have gone to?”

Emma sat up. The room was a bit of a mess. Clothing had been discarded very haphazardly, as had dressing gowns, night gowns and the one mistaken moment when Steed actually donned pajamas before getting into bed. Bedclothes too had been kicked off in the middle of the night – it was warm in Paris and they were not exactly sleeping very far apart.

Steed pulled himself out of bed and located his dressing gown amid the pile of bedclothes. 

“Do you plan to stay like that? Not that I’m complaining, mind, but these French waiters might take it as an invitation.”

She shook her head. “If you’d toss me your shirt there on the armchair, I’ll get up.”

She was aware of his eyes on her as she rose and donned the soft white shirt. There was something delightfully intimate about wearing his shirts, even if they did not do much to cover her long legs. She turned to see Steed watching her with an amused grin on his face. 

“There shall be no mystery left after this trip is over,” she grumbled at him. 

“Mystery is highly overrated, Mrs. Peel.”

She appreciated the sentiment, though she wished he would get out of the habit of calling her Mrs. Peel. As much affection as that name might hold for both of them, she did not like being constantly reminded of that particular part of their past. Nor did it do much to defuse the aura of scandal that hung about them – he was certainly not Mr. Peel. 

For decency’s sake, she found a pair of panties in her suitcase and joined him just the waiter was setting out their lunch. 

God bless the French. An English waiter would have been scandalized at the sight of a man and a woman en deshabille, eating lunch at nearly one o’clock in the afternoon. The waiter here barely batted an eyelid, just set out the dishes, accepted Steed’s tip and left them in peace. 

“My reputation will never be the same,” sighed Emma, seating herself at the table.

“A fallen woman, my dear. Whatever will you do?”

“You’ll just have to marry me and make me honest.”

His eyes met hers for a moment, trying to decide if she was joking. She wondered herself. Then he smiled and sat down, choosing not to remark on it. 

The waiter brought up several letters they had not collected and Steed took a moment to sift through them while Emma gleefully investigated the dishes he’d ordered. She might not have noticed at all had he not uttered an exclamation and torn open an envelope with something like excitement. 

“Good heavens, Cathy!” he said, running his eyes over the contents. 

“Who is Cathy?” said Emma severely. 

“Mrs. Gale. Your venerable Ministry predecessor. She’s in Paris. I wonder how she found me.”

Emma recalled Cathy Gale – or at least recalled what Steed said about her. She’d never actually been introduced to the blonde anthropologist who assisted Steed for an extended period. But she’d always wanted to be. 

“She’d like to have dinner with us,” said Steed, passing the note across to her. 

“Us or you?”

“Us. In fact, she specifies you.”

Emma sighed. “Does everyone know?”

“If they didn’t before, they do now. Four days cloistered in a Paris hotel rather puts the final lie to ‘just good friends,’ doesn’t it?”

“Do try to stop being so smug, Steed.”

“I am never smug.”

Emma shook her head. She knew that they had never really fooled anyone – it was always ‘Steed and Mrs. Peel.’ The appearance of one without the other seemed to excite more comment than when they were together.

“Would you like to meet Cathy?” asked Steed.

“Mm. Very much.”

“Then I’ll ask her to come to dinner tonight.” Steed sighed. “I suppose that we’ll have to get dressed.”

“That is preferred method of attending dinner, however I understand that Mrs. Gale is a forward thinking woman.”

“Sarcasm is not becoming, my dear.”

Emma smiled into her steak au poivre. She would be interested to meet Cathy Gale after all these years. It could be a great deal of fun.


End file.
